Swiney Pines is a small family farm. Located in Arlington Washington, nestled along the Stilliguamish River. Our focus is to raise 100% pastured, rare breed pork. We believe that a happy pig equals tasty meat. All of our hogs are able to graze on pristine, well kept pasture. As our farm grows, you can keep up with all the goings on by following this blog...

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Monday, January 17, 2011

Time to breed!

Yesterday I was at work and got a call from my wife about our sow, Guenevere. She told me that she was totally freaking out in her pen and acting crazy! The pig was foaming at the mouth and knocking over the feeder, chewing at the fence, and charging the walls of the pen! She eventually broke down one of the panels and escaped! She was walking around the driveway when my wife saw her. She recruited my younger brother to help corral the pig and repair the fence. We have had some difficult times trying to figure out when she was ovulating. It usually manifests itself in the form of erratic and extra needy behavior, but I usually only see the pigs at morning and at night and sometimes its hard to monitor behavioral changes. So the sow made it very clear that she was in heat, now we know when her cycle occurs! It's necessary to know this so that we can breed her again. We don't have a boar yet so she has to be taken out to another farm and stay a while during her cycle. So now I mark the calendar and 21 days from then she will have a week long say at Ebey Farm (this is where we got her from). When she returns to our farm she will be impregnated and ready to start putting on weight to supply milk to her new litter.